Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, May 26 2005 (IPS) — Tiptoeing around growing tensions between the United States and Venezuela, the new secretary-general of the Organization of American States (OAS) called Thursday for the creation of ”objective and practical mechanisms” to assess member states’ adherence to their commitments under the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter (IADC).

But Jose Miguel Insulza, who was elected to the post unanimously early this month, stressed that such a mechanism should include the representatives of all 34 member states and be based on ”dialogue,” rather than ”intervention.”

The former Chilean interior minister and the first OAS chief from an explicitly left-wing party also called for the immediate drafting of an inter-American ”social charter” as a way of bolstering democratic governance and showing citizens that democracy can meet ”the citizenry’s most pressing needs.”

”Social rights are inextricably linked to political rights and the right of association,” he declared in his inaugural speech in the ballroom of the hemispheric group’s headquarters, situated just a few hundred metres from both the U.S. State Department and the White House.

The OAS, which has an annual budget of only 80 million dollars, about 60 percent of which is paid by the U.S., has long been considered little more than Washington’s favourite multilateral instrument for imposing its regional political and strategic agenda. In recent times, it appears to have become increasingly marginal in hemispheric affairs.

In part, this has been due both to the George W. Bush administration’s general neglect of the region, particularly since the Sep. 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and the Pentagon, and the choppy transition between the stewardship of former President Cesar Gaviria, who led the OAS for ten years, and Insulza’s installation here Thursday.

Former Costa Rican President Miguel Angel Rodriguez was elected last year to succeed Gaviria, only to step down after three weeks in office last October due to his implication in a corruption scandal in San Jose.

Insulza prevailed in what was initially a three-way race that included Washington’s original preferred candidate, former Salvadorean President Francisco Flores, and Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez.

With his backing confined almost entirely to the U.S. and most of his Central American neighbours, Flores backed out Apr. 8. Subsequently, Derbez, who was supported by the U.S. and Caribbean basin states most closely allied with Washington, and Insulza, who was backed by most of South America and the English-speaking Caribbean, tied at 17 votes each through five rounds of balloting.

During her maiden voyage to South America as U.S. secretary of state, or foreign minister, in late April, Condoleezza Rice broke the impasse by helping to persuade Derbez to withdraw in favour of Insulza.

Rice’s intervention was widely hailed as a pragmatic move by Latin America specialists here who had strongly criticised Washington’s initial support for Flores which reportedly had been engineered by anti-Castro forces led by Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega and his predecessor, Otto Reich.

”She played a very pragmatic, very understanding role, and the Latin Americans walked away very pleased with the outcome, particularly because she made a point of consulting widely,” according to Peter Hakim, president of the IAD, an influential hemispheric think tank based in Washington.

Nonetheless, Insulza’s victory was depicted as a significant symbolic defeat for the Bush administration and a ”clear signal,” according to the Wall Street Journal, ”that U.S. influence in the hemisphere is waning.”

The fact that Insulza is the first OAS leader who was not the preferred U.S. candidate offers hope to some observers that he may be well placed both to restore the organisation’s stature and forge consensus in a region that is in some ways very divided, as the race for the secretary-general illustrated.

”It’s important that here is a man of stature who was proposed by Latin American countries, not by the U.S.,” said Joy Olson, director of the human rights group Washington Office on Latin America. ”And it’s important that that the U.S. finally listened to their colleagues in the hemisphere about who they thought could best lead this organisation.”

To what extent, however, Washington will remain in listening mode, particularly as relations between the Bush administration and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez become increasingly fraught, is perhaps the biggest challenge Insulza faces in the short term.

Since Insulza’s election, Noriega has been pressing a proposal to create a new OAS body that would monitor member states’ compliance with the IADC in what most diplomats and analysts see as a move aimed at embarrassing and isolating Chavez.

Noriega as well as U.S. media depicted a public statement by Insulza that appeared to back such an initiative as the quid for the quo of Rice’s withdrawal of support for Derbez. During a press conference with Rice in Santiago, Insulza stated that the OAS must broaden its mission and begin to ”hold governments that are not governed democratically accountable” for their actions.

In an internal e-mail message to U.S. embassies that was leaked to the New York Times, Noriega exulted that ”Insulza accepted without hesitation our exhortation that he met a public statement alluding to the Chavez threat.”

In his remarks Thursday, Insulza alluded, albeit very diplomatically, to the initiative, noting that the IADC ”was signed so that it would be fulfilled; it is not just another declaration.”

In that connection, ”objective and practical mechanisms are required that enable us to evaluate how democracy is functioning in the members states,” he said, adding, however, that ”it is up to the member countries to agree upon the mechanisms by which to fulfill the obligations that the Charter creates.”

At a press conference immediately after his inauguration, Insulza reiterated the importance of devising such a mechanism but again stressed that it should be ”voluntary” and ”participatory”.

”I want to create a political dialogue to find a way to do this,” he said, adding that he does not seek a ”mechanism that comes to a country in an interventionist position and says, ‘Out of one to ten, you get a six, so we’re going to do this and this’. The OAS is not a presidential system; it is a parliamentary system”.